A wireless local area network (WLAN) may be formed by one or more access points (APs) that provide a shared wireless communication medium for use by a number of client devices or stations (STAs). Each AP, which may correspond to a Basic Service Set (BSS), periodically broadcasts beacon frames to enable any STAs within wireless range of the AP to establish and/or maintain a communication link with the WLAN. In a typical WLAN, only one STA may use the wireless medium at any given time, and each STA may be associated with only one AP at a time. Due to the increasing ubiquity of wireless networks, when a STA seeks to join a wireless network, the STA may have a choice between multiple wireless networks and/or between multiple APs that form an extended BSS. At present, STAs may use a received signal strength indicator (RSSI) value to select the best available WLAN to join and/or the best available AP to associate with. RSSI values do not provide any indication of the capacity that would be available to the “new” STA. The new STA may use information indicating how many STAs are currently associated with an AP as a gauge of the AP's available capacity. However, the number of STAs currently associated with an AP may not account for current activity (e.g., traffic levels and/or traffic types) of the associated STAs, and therefore may not provide an accurate indication of available capacity.
Thus, it would be desirable for STAs to have a more accurate estimate of the available capacity of APs when deciding which AP to associate with.
Like reference numerals refer to corresponding parts throughout the drawing figures.